Featured designer: Karen Hermon

taprobane

Where do your product ideas come from?

I am constantly inspired by art, fashion, architecture, furniture, theatre, music and mostly people. I love Wellington for the quirky mix of design that ends up here, due to the city having both strong corporate and art scenes. Ideas often come from a glimpse of a colour, a texture or a shape. It doesn't take alot to inspire me, the possibilities are everywhere and endless. The current range of jewellery I have been working on, has been inspired by amazing wrought iron products from my childhood. I loved the organic shapes combined with industrial materials. They created a wonderful tension between nature and man-made design. I aimed to reflect that balance in a wearable way, with a contemporary material. You can view a selection of my pieces at my showroom: http://www.ponoko.com/showroom/taprobane My first range of jewellery I created through Ponoko, was called "alphabet soup" and inspired by my love of fonts and everything typographic. It was an easy introduction into Ponoko's laser cutting and allowed me to explore the level of detail that could be achieved. I look forward to new materials being introduced and exploring the way in which new and existing ideas could translate within different mediums.

What and how did you typically make things?

Previously, I have created jewellery in sporadic bursts. The ideas were always there but from an execution point of view, it was often too tricky, time-consuming or expensive and therefore many of my ideas never came into fruition. With Ponoko, I have been able to put together a whole range of jewellery - which has been very well received by other designers, store owner/buyers and the general public.

What benefits have you gained by using Ponoko?

By far the greatest benefit has been the ease of production. With Ponoko, everything is easy and quick; it can all be done from my computer within minutes, uploading, quoting, selling etc. This leaves me heaps more time for the conceptual and design side - the part I really love! And the cool thing with living in Wellington, is that I can pop down the road and pick up my pieces; cutting out the cost of postage.